Amoral Operatives

Some years ago I wrote an email to an old High School and University friend suggesting we launch a class action law suit against our parents, our teachers, the city fathers of Victoria, BC, the department of education, our coaches and profs, for misleading us about the nature of human society. I think at the time an egregious scandal was erupting in the USA where he lived and, of course, a smaller, slightly less outrageous scandal was being investigated in Canada.

And I am now, though not by choice, acquainted with the likes of Manafort and Stone and Corsi. Despite being something of a student of human behaviour I am quite astonished and bewildered by these and other “operatives.”

They are no longer young men, and they may spend their final decade in prison, but it seems from their teens through adult life they have wormed their way into front row seats within the opera house of corruption, despotism, greed and power. And here is my question: How does a Roger Stone seek out, find, acquire such jobs as consultant to or lobbyist for Ferdinand Marcos and Mobuto Sese Seko, along with Reagan, Nixon, and Trump?

I do not recall my University advisor and second year philosophy professor including in his list of possible career choices (along with suggesting I consider teaching English) making pots of money consulting to Viktor Yanukovych and Jonas Savimbi.

How do you get these jobs?

It appears that as amoral operatives these men were able to successfully partake of the spoils of a wide range of criminals, dictators and despots around the world, as well as American presidential candidates, throughout their adult lives, without running into trouble, at least until they hitched their wagons to Donald Trump.

Roger Stone has a tattoo image of Nixon on his back.

Matthew George Whitaker apparently said his job was to “throw himself on a grenade for Donald Trump.”

Paul Manafort is playing both hands, cooperating with but lying to Mueller, going for both a lighter sentence and a pardon from Trump.

Perhaps these men are necessary for the Idi Amins, the Marcos, the Hitlers, the Putins, the Yanukovych’s and the Trumps of this world.

Amoral operatives willing to feign sacrificial allegiance to anyone who might be able, at least for a while, bestow upon them money, status and power.

Perhaps they are more dangerous than the would-be despots, for who would that silly little failed artist with the silly mustache, or that blonde comb over con artist and that short bare-chested strutting Russian sportsman be without these second tier amoral operatives?

Where there is a will, there is a way. These amoral operatives provide the “way” for those who have an abundant “will” to acquire power. Many leaders and their operatives are really there to satisfy their own self centred desires in my opinion. Hypocrisy is in abundance. And I agree that we do not get sufficient education about how to cope with such people. Apathy and a lack of vigilance, which allows for bad things to happen in our governments (SNC Lavelin) and our health care organizations (Ornge, Mental Health) is the enemy.

Entitlement, elitism, arrogance develop in silos when those who take part are removed from the consequences of their actions. Unfortunately, in Ontario this has all led to the Ford government because voters have grasped in frustration onto Ford’s “for the people” message only to learn that Ford’s people are the priveleged and wealthy.

Perhaps, our educational institutions need to set up a new field called “The acquisition of power, its misuse, and how to raise people’s awareness of this issue”.

In the meantime, we have a free press and people who write meaningful blogs.

As Ms. Jean Brodie said, “give me a child at an impressionable age and she is mine for ever.”
If you want to blow up something, you can either send a $million missile, or bring up a kid to think heaven will bless him/her if he/she self-detonates bombs hidden in clothing, and its much cheaper. Then there are genes to consider. Historically, genes for gullibility have had a high survival value over millennia of oppressive dictatorships. Likewise, genes for sucking up to dictators also survive. Genes for whistle-blowing have not faired too well (i.e. their owner does not live long enough to produce enough offspring to guarantee the genes’ continued existence through the generations).